Once again Mary begun to cry. She was racing down the hallway with an anxious Marlene following behind her as they made their way towards detention. It was dark, with the lamps along the corridor extinguished and the portraits along the wall sound asleep the school was beginning to feel a bit abandoned.

“Mary, please do not worry about Lily, she is being silly. You know how defensive she gets when it is about Snape” Marlene reasoned with her, breathing steadily. She wasn’t as cut out as Mary was, after all Mary had been to numerous quidditch practises that she hadn’t.

Glaring back Mary wasn’t at all up for reasoning with her anger blinding her “Lily’s pathetic, just as Snape is. She needs to see who her real friends are” She spat behind her at Marlene who instantly flinched away “He’s nothing but a death eater wannabe, and is using Lily, she should see it! She’s a muggle-born, like myself, and even she can’t deny that he laughed when his friends called me a mudblood” finally she whimpered out, and began to cry again. Marlene wasn’t sure what to do, with her friend in this state she wasn’t too sure whether to let her cry it out or comfort her. Finally after many moments of looking around she put a, what she hoped was a soothing arm around her.

“It is alright, I understand why you are angry, but see it from Lily’s point of view. Everyone is always bullying Snape and now you just happen to curse him”

Mary suddenly turned to glare “Are you on Lily’s side? You seem to be ‘very understanding’ from her point of view”

“No, no, of course not! I am-”

“No, don’t bother, just let me get to detention on my own, go back to you obvious best friend Lily” She swerved around drastically and strode to the end of the corridor keeping her nose in the air, her face screwed up willing the tears not to fall.

“Mary!” Marlene called behind her, sighing wishing she hadn’t said anything, she threw her hands up in the air in disbelief, before jogging to catch up “Please, I never said that! This is getting ridicules”

Her footsteps followed behind her as she made her way behind Mary who was mumbling aimlessly under her breath.

“Mary please I understand why-”

“shut up!” whinged Mary “It may seem ridicules to you but you don’t have to worry about being called names, like mudblood, do you? You’re pureblood, superior and everything. So please don’t start telling me you understand at all”

Marlene looked down sadly realizing only now, just why she was so distressed about it. It upset Marlene that people would flaunt the word mudblood around and not think it would hurt anyone. The result was obvious just looking at Mary.

As she looked down something unusual caught her eye.

five shadows (including her own and Mary’s) while three chased behind them not far back, She gulped back but carried on walking, not wanting them to know she had seen whoever they were and only hoping her eyes were playing tricks with her. Listening hard she heard the faint footsteps trailing.

Her breath was hard as she tried to speed up, and slowly trying to get Mary’s attention with a nudge to the side

“Oh just go back to the common room, will you?” Moaned Mary angrily.

“Mary, Mary” She whispered as low as she could, but when she only shoved her back Marlene all of a sudden yelled “SOMEONE IS BEHIND US” she screamed at the top of her voice, hoping to startle the mysterious ‘shadows’ and that someone would hear her before quickly turning around her wand ready and yelling “STUPEFY!”

Having no time to aim the spell went off target and three figures loomed forward each with their wands raised. Steadily both Mary and Marlene took precious steps back, the eyes wide. With one look at each other and deep breath the two of them fired, as did the figures, whose faces were hidden in the darkness.

“STUPEFY!” Marlene shouted again and a blue light flashed out of her wand missing its target by inches, she never did have a good aim.

“petrificus totalus” Mary followed, which had no effect what so ever, another spell came in their direction and hit Mary forcing her to drop her wand immediately. She panicked but was quickly thrown back in the air.

Marlene gritted her teeth but when a particular curse was sent her way the next thing she knew was she was on the floor, her eyes watering and hot knives were piercing her body everywhere, she heard nothing over the top of her screams. she rolled and withered about the floor desperately hoping it would end.

“MARLENE!” She heard Mary cry but it was quickly followed by the unforgettable shriek of Mary who seemed to have gotten the same fate as her.

Finally the torture ended, but her heart was pounding madly as she looked across to see Mary whimpering, the Cruciatus Curse being given to her one after the other.

She was pulled up roughly and pinned against the wall a wand being jabbed in her face but she hardly felt it with the on-going pain that was present through her whole body.

“Please” She pleaded with the slytherine, who she now could see was Avery. He only grinned at her.

“Don’t worry, love, we have no plan in harming you. It’s your mud-blood friend who needs to pay. She got us in a tight spot today after we called her a mud-blood, I had a nose bleed for hours” Avery gritted his teeth, he turned to look over at Mary and glared before looking back.

“You deserved it!” She spat “Someone will hear us, you know?”

“We’ll be gone in a mo’, love” He s smirked “we just want our revenge and we’ll be off”

“What? And you do not think we will tell” Marlene challenged raising an eyebrow, wanting to keep him here longer, the more time for someone to find them.

“Probably” He answered casually as if it didn’t really bother him “but we’ve got friends who’ll say we were always in the common room this whole time, it’s your word against ours, love”

*

Just a few corridors down were Lily and Remus doing their weekly duties as prefects. So far, only having caught one couple snogging in a broom cupboard just a few floors up. But it was getting late now and it was beginning to show as the moonlight only just peeked in through the stained glass windows lined up along the corridor.

“I’m really tired” Lily yawned staring off into her dimly lit wand “It’s been a long day; I still can’t believe what Mary did to Sev. I keep telling everyone he didn’t deserve it but no one seems to care, it’s all Mary this and Mary that. I just don’t know what to do with her anymore; she’s such a drama queen”

Remus only nodded. In all honesty he hadn’t really been listening and instead had let Lily do her thinking allowed with no interruptions. He was worried, worried about two nights time when once again another full moon would rise and if James, Sirius and Peter would come with him. He hoped so but then again, could he risk putting them in danger? Hoe terrible would he feel if any of them were hurt? He didn’t know if he could bear the thought of endangering one of them.

“Remus…” He was brought to full attention again at the mention of his name and turned towards Lily who was staring at him confused “I asked you if you thought I was right to yell at Mary, I mean I was only defending my friend... but, I suppose he did laugh, and no real harm was done to him, just a swollen foot, still the she should have some morals. Just because he laughed doesn’t mean he deserved that. Fine, I agree with her on a certain level, the boys should. Not. Have called her a mud-blood, but why did she aim at Severus?”

Out of nowhere there was a loud and horrifying scream echoing from just down the hallway and with one glance at one another the two legged it, their wands raised.

*

There was a sudden scuttling and footsteps not far from where they were and Avery whipped around letting go of his tight grip on Marlene immediately allowing her to collapse onto the floor in a lump.

“Someone’s coming!” Avery hurried usurping the others to hurry up, as the other two finally finished torturing Mary and were just about to run off, as if they were never there.

Marlene with the pain still seeming to flow through her blood jumped forward and grabbed her wand which was lying alone on the stone floor, looking up she quickly stupefied one of their attackers who had tried to run just as Lily and Remus had rounded the corner, in a huff.

With one look around at the scene Lily yelled “Oh my god! What the hell happened!” and ran to Mary’s aid, who seemed to lay lifelessly on the floor in a broken heap “MARY!” she shook her shoulders and when Mary whimpered out a bit, but only just, Lily’s shoulder relaxed a little but still she was staring, eyes wide in shock at Mary.

Remus looked around and saw Marlene struggling on the floor, he ran over to her placing an arm around her, helping her up from the cold stone floor.

“Marlene? What happened?” He rushed, panicked evident in his voice “What- What happened here? One moment we were down the corridor, talking and then there were screams. Are you alright?”

“We-We were walking to detention, uh, and these, uh” She was struggling to explain, still shocked and frightened over the recent events “Slytherines, who had called Mary a, uh, you-know-what. They tortured us, but Mary more… and….”

She trailed off suddenly remembering the Slytherine she had stunned before and unattached herself from Remus moving towards the limp figure groaning on the floor, her wand raised.

She didn’t know what she wanted to do, only to cause as much pain as possible to the person in front of her and wondering who the other two attackers were.

When he made an attempt to get up Marlene flicked her wand immediately and casually sending him back down again with an angry gash down his cheek.

“Is that Avery?” Remus commented moving towards him and turning his unconscious body to face them “Where there more?”

“Yes, two more”

“I’m going to go get a teacher” Remus said moving away “Will you guys be alright?”

Marlene nodded quickly sitting back down on the floor completely exhausted, all she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep.

It was a couple more minutes until Remus returned with teachers trailing behind him, and with panicked glances they were rushed towards the hospital wing, blankets and towels draped around them, but Marlene hardly knew what was going on. Her entire attention was focused on Mary who had had to be lifted out of there, too weak and too fragile to walk.

“Don’t worry about Mary, Marls” Lily comforted “She’ll be alright”

That night the Hospital wing was occupied by Marlene and Mary who were shivering and shaking. Lily and Remus stayed behind for comfort but soon the two of them fell soundlessly asleep in the visiting chairs at their bedside.

Looking across at Mary she saw Madam Pomfrey close the curtains, hiding Mary from gossiping students. She only could hope the news wouldn’t spread.

At the far end of them room was Avery and as expected was whimpering and moaning in his sleep, most likely wanting to cause a fuss, but Madam Pomfrey didn’t even glance at the injured slytherine who had attacked the girls.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Marlene closed her eyes and slept.

A/N I know it’s been ages since there’s an update and if you’re still reading then thank-you! I hope you liked this chapter. I will TRY and update quicker next time.